As above really. Have an increasing collection of old (and in some cases knackered) hard drives that have been used for Time Machine backups.

Any suggestions how I dispose of them?

Hit them with a hammer, then take to electrical item bin at local tip

I stick them in the pillar drill and stick a 5mm drill bit through all the platters – then dump in metal recycling…

Unscrew the casing
Remove the platters and use as mug coasters
Remove magnets and use on fridge / picking up bolts / canal fishing
Casing in the metal recycling

if they are working I stick the largest in external hd case for an emergency backup option or random storage. they are cheap as chips on flea bay though pretty crap so they don’t get used much but have saved the day on more than one occasion.

Trade them in a CEX?
Not sure anyone is actually going to take the time to hack any old data, but DBAN them if your concerned.
Or smack them with a hammer/drill through them if you really concerned, then take them down to your local tips WEEE section

Take apart and destroy,keep the magnets as they are very useful in shed world,recycle the rest.

HULK SMASH!

currently sat looking at 5 on my desk – just need to check them for missing crypto millions before I get the hammer out 😉

Load them in the washing machine, hot cycle long spin.

Put into plastic bag, then a few whacks with the biggest hammer you’ve got.

Just throw them away.

Absolutely no-one is going to be wading through your local tip looking for hard disks unless you have reason to be specifically targeted.

Unless you have a secret life of crime, or a lot of diy porn, you don’t really have to worry much. I keep decent sized ones for backups, and everything else I take apart because they’re cool inside and the magnets are handy.

a lot of diy porn

Specialist is the word I think you’re looking for. Imagine the depravity of the average STW puritan. Stuff so **** up, you wouldn’t think anyone would be into it!

There’s no where near enough magnetic flux in the universe to degauss away the sins of the STW perverts!

Just reformat them and throw them in the bin. Nobody is going to bother trying to extract data from a random hard drive just on the off chance that there might be something valuable in there.

Or, if you want to be totally sure, after you format them, remove the seal and pour some salt inside, then reformat them. The salt will destroy the heads and it would take serious effort to rebuild them and extract the data. Or just smash them with a hammer, but it’s quite satisfying hearing the grinding of a hard drive destroying itself.

I bring mine to work and put them throughout our industrial demagnetiser. Obviously not everyone has access to such kit….

Throw them into landfill near Newport to make things more interesting for the guy that threw out £210 million in Bitcoin on an old hard drive by mistake.

Absolutely no-one is going to be wading through your local tip looking for hard disks

Expect for that chap I knew who did just that. Any hard drive he found he took home for an inspection.
Hence the Hammer Time!

Absolutely no-one is going to be wading through your local tip looking for hard disks unless you have reason to be specifically targeted.

But then you miss out on the joy of hitting them with a big hammer!!

diy porn

Whacking off over someone using a circular saw etc. Takes all sorts…

Do what Microsoft do if one goes wrong in their cloud data centres and wang it through a big shredder thing. Cool… (or drill through it).

Absolutely no-one is going to be wading through your local tip looking for hard disks unless you have reason to be specifically targeted.

I have a friend who regularly goes through his local electrical recycling bin (in France) and finds lots of devices with credit card details etc still configured…

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2jzvZi5]Monsieur Dechetterie[/url] by Ben Freeman, on Flickr

I’ve also noticed that out local electrical waste bin is regularly rummaged through by someone removing various bits…

Absolutely no-one is going to be wading through your local tip looking for hard disks unless

…they are that bloke who chucked away an old hard drive forgetting it had loads of Bitcoin on it. That could be worth almost a hundred pounds these days.

Hit them with a hammer 3 times. Format. Bathe in a salt solution. Format. Remove magnets and cut what’s left into at least 20 pieces. Format. Then distribute the bits into 4 or 5 different bins or recycling centres, preferably in different counties.

Bathe in a salt solution.

Couldn’t he just have a shower instead? He won’t get that sweaty after a bit of hammering…………